While I hate fragmentation in BSD community it is more or less apparent that after FreeBSD forum segregation this forum is more or less for OpenBSD users only. While I concur that there is historically important information on this forum concerning all flavours of BSDs I also see benefit in chaining the name to OpenBSD forums as I anticipate more new members. Daemon Forums is not really what I personally would Google if I am a n00b to OpenBSD.

Personally, I believe BSD users are intelligent enough to do a general search for BSD fora, after a search for OpenBSD forum yields little result. That is how I found this place a two or three years ago. Also, a search for OpenBSD forum will include this board in the results, because there is an OpenBSD sub-forum. I agree that a forum dedicated soley to OpenBSD would be nice, but since OpenBSD does not have a forum culture, I wonder if enough people would use the board to make it viable. This board also has a NetBSD section. NetBSD also does not have a forum of its own, making this site a rare resource for its users as well.

Even though I haven't used OpenBSD in years, since I changed back to a FreeBSD shop in the last year, I check these forums daily. I still feel comfortable asking FreeBSD questions here--maybe even more so than on FreeBSD forums, since I've known most of the members here, through the Internet, for years.

All joking aside, and yes, J65nko, it was a bit amusing,, I think that generally speaking as sacerdos_daemonis said the majority of BSD users are experienced enough, by the time they get to seeking out forums, to realize what's going on, and even if they're not, this forum has always struck me as very nice to newcomers.

There's also the PCBSD forums, though I haven't seen, in a long time, PCBSD posts on these forums.

Plus, I have NO idea of OpenBSD politics, but would suspect that to change the name would involve getting permission from them, possibly being subject to their oversight, and other political issues that are easily avoided by leaving the name as is.

Of course, these days, I'm an infrequent poster here, but the results of J65nko's demonstrated search indicate that here is probably where OpenBSD newcomers would end up.

Last edited by scottro; 1st November 2014 at 09:17 PM.
Reason: missed a couple of commas and an "n"

Even though I haven't used OpenBSD in years, since I changed back to a FreeBSD shop in the last year, I check these forums daily. I still feel comfortable asking FreeBSD questions here--maybe even more so than on FreeBSD forums, since I've known most of the members here, through the Internet, for years.

The "community value" is also the main reason I come back here... Plus, I strongly dislike the excessive moderation of the FreeBSD Forums (which goes so far to change the words that I choose to use).

These days, I don't use FreeBSD much. I have 1 FreeBSD server at home, and at my job we have a few, but it's not as much as I used to use (ie. as a desktop). I don't use OpenBSD at all any more :-(

__________________
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.

I saw the FreeBSD forum three or four years ago and was not enthusiastic about it. The people seem knowledgeable and friendly, but I found the level of moderation "a bit" excessive. Excessive to the point of editing posts to correct spelling and grammar mistakes. I am a language a-hole who constantly corrects the bad language of others, but even I found that aspect of the board too much. I am not trying to insult the FreeBSD forum. I am sure it is a good repository of knowledge. It is just not to my liking. (But then few things are. ) Two things I do like about that forum are: the appearance - nice colour scheme; and how the forum is part of the FreeBSD website - news, documentation, downloads and forum all in one place.

I've not seen many corrections to the posts in the new FreeBSD forum format (a few weeks old ) -- may have something to do with the inability to edit one's posts, at least in this browser [ Stalls upon pressing edit button... ] . Don't know how it is for others... But it is more readable so gets a lot more daily traffic now.

I believe they switched to phpBB - probably because later versions of vBulletin are 'not as good'.

I haven't joined either, mostly due to the infamously obsessive editing. When all is said and done though, I'm pretty sure it's in the terms of registration and they are free to run it how they like. It's not as if you need to join the forums to use the OS either (many Linux users seem to miss that point all too often).

I use OpenBSD for both laptops and servers. Not sure if it is really that useful to change this forum's name; while I do agree that OpenBSD is the main BSD currently getting queried in the last while, there is no compelling reason to re-orient the forums here. As others I have stated, if I would want to query about FreeBSD, I'd be more comfortable doing so here than elsewhere. I think let OpenBSD be the main deal now, because that is what most here want to investigate -- but let the BSD interest be organic and subject to the winds of BSD users' interests.

As for the FreeBSD forums, they switched again, to a commercial offering, xenforo. I find that most of the desired tags don't add anything to readability, (save for cmd and code tags), and actually, when one searches on google and gets a hit on the forums, the tags often don't show, so one has to wade through [tag]something[/tag], like reading html mail in mutt.

Despite that annoyance, they do seem to be a nice bunch of people there too.

As for the FreeBSD forums, they switched again, to a commercial offering, xenforo. I find that most of the desired tags don't add anything to readability, (save for cmd and code tags), and actually, when one searches on google and gets a hit on the forums, the tags often don't show, so one has to wade through [tag]something[/tag], like reading html mail in mutt.

Despite that annoyance, there do see to be a nice bunch of people there too.